Who Is Olympia Snowe?

Today the deciding vote by the senior Republican Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, supported the health care overhaul bill at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. She was praised as being "extraordinarily diligent" by President Obama during the recent press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero.

Prior to her deciding vote, the NY Times described her as being very adept at avoided "camera jockeys, reporters, and sycophants" that were following her around to determine what exactly her vote would be on the healthcare overhaul bill that has been so important to many Americans and President Obama.

Olympia Snowe has been adequately described as "one of the foremost Scrum Queens on Capitol Hill." A political key power on many major positions in legislature, how exactly did she develop this reputation and who exactly is Olympia Snowe?

A woman who is widely known for her ability to influence the outcome of close voting sessions and having the ability to successfully end filibusters, Olympia Snowe has been recognized as focusing very seriously on the healthcare's practical mechanics and real-life things before her vote was ever cast. True to her nature, this vote was not a simple party vote but one of sincere and extreme bipartisan thought.

Before this final moment, the White House and Democratic lawmakers strongly desired and needed one Republican vote for their healthcare bill. To accomplish this as successfully as they could, they were more than anxious to accommodate Snowe's primary concerns about the affordability of insurance plans, the feasibility of a public option, and health care costs.

In the year 2006, Olympia Snowe was named by Time Magazine as one of America's Top Ten Senators. Meanwhile, the Congressional Quarterly was quoted as saying her presence at the negotiating table in the 107th Congress was "nearly a necessity." But a long time ago, Olympia Snowe had an entirely different life.

With her father immigrating to the United States from Sparta, Greece, Snowe in her earlier years had a life of continuous tragedy. When she was eight-years of age her mother died of breast cancer; when she was nine-years old her father died of heart disease; and she was raised by her aunt and uncle who already had five children while her brother was taken away and raised separately. A few years later, her uncle died of illness.

Olympia Snowe went to school and life began to change for her after this. Eventually, she earned a degree in political science at the University of Maine, an honorary degree at Bates College, and an honorary degree at the University of Delaware. Once she began to enter politics, she rose quickly and worked for Congressman William Cohen

Following this, her husband who was a Republican state legislator of Maine was killed in an automobile accident. Immediately, she was prompted by family and supporters to run for her husband's seat in the Maine House of Representatives at age 26---and won. She became a delegate to both the state and national Republican conventions.

In 1978, Snowe was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and represented Maine's 2nd Congressional District until 1995, also serving as member of the Budget and International Relations Committee. Marrying for a second time in 1989, she married the governor of Maine, John "Jock" McKernan. Both individuals served together in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 1986. As First Lady of Maine, she was a U.S. Representative and also elected and sworn in as a United States Senator. By 1994, she won the Senate Majority Leader seat.

Occasionally, Olympia Snowe would break with the Bush administration, which led personal attacks by other conservative Republicans. She was labeled as "Republican in Name Only" by the Club for Growth and Concerned Women for America. Because of her reputation in politics, she was praised in the Time Magazine for her extreme sensitivity---"Because of her centrist views and eagerness to get beyond partisan point scoring, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe is in the center of every policy debate in Washington."

The public option was a key point that helped Snowe pass the final vote on the healthcare plan. Nebraska Democratic Ben Nelson was the deciding vote for the public option of the healthcare plan on October 8, 2009, quoted as "seeing merit in a new public option proposal" that would allow any states opt out of the new healthcare plan. Its overview that developed in the new government insurance program was proposed by President Obama as a way of "keeping insurers honest" by promoting competition.

The public option was where individuals who presently do not have any insurance could buy affordable health insurance. According to President Obama, a public plan would "compete with private insurers" on healthcare insurance's price and quality of care. The overall idea is to benefit consumers, something the president has always wanted since the earlier days of healthcare.

**The youngest Republican women who has been elected to the United States House of Representatives.
**The first woman to serve in both the state legislature and both houses of the U.S. Congress.
**The first Greek-American congresswoman.
**The first person to serve as a member of Congress and as First Lady of the state.
**She never lost elections for 35 years as an elected official.
**In 2006 mid-term senatorial elections, she raised $2.1 million dollars seven months ahead of the election.
**In 2006, she won by the second-largest margin of any U.S. Senate candidate in the country.

This is a political term which described the bipartisan group of Senators in the 109th United States Congress, a group which was successful for negotiating a spring compromise in 2005 to avoid a nuclear option deployment. The organized compromise by the Gang of 14 was over an organized use of the filibuster by Senate Democrats against President George W. Bush's confirmed candidates, for a total of ten filibusters.

Olympia Snowe was one of fourteen senators who were part of the Gang of 14, known to have defused the confrontation between Senate Democrats and Senate Republican leadership against the nuclear option.

As a member of the Gang of 14, she played an important role in the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. The reasoning was "they asserted that neither met the extraordinary circumstances provision outlined in their agreement.